Benefits of Low Temperature Fermentation

My husband has gone to some creative measures to ensure that the fermentation for our white varieties is at a constant low temperature. In 2015, when we had our first extremely modest harvest, he modified our 30 year old refrigerator to be at at constant 60 degrees with the use of a Johnsons temperature controller.
The benefits to keeping a constant low temperature during fermentation is to:

• preserve the aroma and flavors that high temperatures might volatilize including esters from fatty acids, organic acids, and higher alcohols

• prevent the development of off-flavors, specifically volatile sulfur-containing compounds like hydrogen sulfide, mercaptans (thiols) and disulfides which can lead to aromas or flavors reminiscent of rotten eggs, cooked cabbage and skunk

• improve the clarity of wine, since yeast cells are less likely to give off colloids
• better control of microbial growth to minimize potential spoilage

We are proponents of low temperature, long fermentations designed to preserve the aromatics and flavors that can be achieved by that process. This year was going to present somewhat of a challenge to keep our harvest at a low temperature, but I think that we will be able to use our basement for this one last time. Procurement (my husband) has ordered 2 more chest freezers and is in the process of ordering our half kegs that will fit in the chest freezer.
References:
1. Penn State Extensions, An Introduction on Low Temperature Fermentation in Wine Production
2. Antonio G. Cordente, Christopher D. Curtin, Cristian Varela, Isak S. Pretorius, Flavor-active Wine Yeast, Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology, November 2012, Volume 96, Issue 3, pp 601-618.
All structures were drawn by the freely available drawing program from ACD Labs called ACD/ChemSketch Freeware.

Chenin Blanc at Veraison

True to form, our Chenin Blanc was the last to reach veraison. Yesterday, when we went into the vineyard, we noticed that there was wide variation in the Brix level in the Chenin Blanc. Most of the Chenin Blanc appear to be around 11 Brix, but some of the Chenin Blanc are now between 16-18 Brix and are tasting very sweet. At this level of Brix, the skin on the grape is quite thin and susceptible to predation by birds, bees, etc. Since there are only a few clusters at that Brix level, we have been bagging those aberrant clusters which usually appear to be larger than the typical Chenin Blanc clusters shown on the right.
When we are working in the vineyard, we use all of our senses to get a handle on the ripening progress of our grapes. Visual cues include the change in color from green to lime green and the expansion of the clusters. Other visual cues include interest by yellow jackets and other bees. By handling the cluster, we can feel the softening of the grape skin. Tasting the grapes and comparing it with our refractometer gives us an indication of the flavor that is associated with the particular sugar level. Between 9-11 Brix, the grapes still can taste rather astringent. Above 11 Brix, the grapes are now very tart but have lost their astringency. Above 16 Brix, the grapes are noticeably sweet and the seed can be crunchy, think grape nuts, the cereal.
I've updated my tracking timeline to include veraison for Chenin Blanc:

2014 Domaine Javillier Cuvée Oligocène

We are fans of Domaine Javillier wines. We are partial to their entry level Bourgogne, Javillier Cuvée des Forgets. The wine is right up our flavor alley and we hope someday to vinify our Chardonnay to achieve a similar style.
We recently had this 2014 Domaine Javillier Cuvée Oligocène, which is a level up from the Cuvée des Forgets. The grapes come from a single vineyard, les Pellans in the commune of Meursault in the direction of Puligny-Montrachet below Meursault Charmes.
What I remember of this Chardonnay is that it was very well balanced with a good amount of acidity. I'll have to update this blog with better tasting notes which I will be able to do since my husband says that we have more of this wine. I'm thinking that we need to share this wine with our friend who is a Chardonnay aficionado who loves Premier Crus like 2009 Domaine Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Combettes, to see what she thinks.

Grapes Reaching Veraison

The tip off that the white varietal grapes are reaching or at veraison is that the hard, green grape bunches will now feel soft to the touch. Now is the time for checking the Brix on all of our grapes. Our Auxerrois was the first to reach veraison, on August 16th with a Brix level of 9. The only other data point that we have for Auxerrois came from last year when veraison was around August 12th with a Brix level of 10. We do feel that the vineyard is about a week behind previous years.
The lag is most likely related to the many rain events that we have had this summer and temperatures that have not reached the heat that we experienced in previous years. We have heard that vineyards in Pennsylvania also appear to be somewhat behind in reaching veraison.
In keeping with my husband's wishes that I take data points for our three varieties, I have been tracking budbreak, bloom and now veraison for the varieties that are producing grapes this year. It is interesting that while the Chardonnay blooms first, the Auxerrois second, and the Chenin Blanc last, the Auxerrois seems to reach veraison before the Chardonnay.

We have been bagging and now netting our Auxerrois and Chardonnay so that the birds can resist the temptation of eating ripe grapes and also so that we can have a harvest. The next variety to be netted will be the Chenin Blanc and since the Brix is only now reaching about 9, we may have a few days before the birds discover the delectable morsels before their eyes. No time to waste!

2013 Boudignon Savennières Les Fougeraies

The 2015 Trefethen Chardonnay that we began our panko crusted halibut meal with did not last long, and we soon opened up this 2013 Savennières Les Fougeraies made by Thibaud Boudignon. In December 2015, I blogged about Thibaud Boudignon's 2012 Anjou Blanc. We had just made a searingly acidic Chenin Blanc on our first try and wanted to compare it with others made in the same style. My husband did the research and honed in on Boudignon. This Savennières Les Fougeraies, is the step up from the Anjou Blanc. Peaches, honey balanced with acidity to compliment our fish meal! If the bottle says Savennières, the wine may be a taut and concentrated example of dry Chenin Blanc.

2016 PATH Act

I read an article in the June 2017 issue of Wines & Vines that will soon have some bearing on us called "What Coming Excise Tax Changes Mean" written by Ann Reynolds. We are not yet a bonded winery, but that is looming in the near future. There was a bill introduced in Congress in January of this year called the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act, which I will write about in another blog.
This impending new bill made me curious to know what the current laws are regarding wine taxes so I looked it up and found an article written in Wines & Vines in February, 2016 called Are You Sure You Need a Wine Bond? This article contained the following information.
On Dec. 18, 2015, President Barack Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act. One section of the law included something called Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015 also known as PATH, which would take effect beginning with the calendar quarter that starts on January 1, 2017. This PATH act contained one section pertinent to people in the wine industry:

• excise tax due dates
• bond requirements
• definition of wine eligible for the “hard cider” tax rate

One take home message from reading this article for us is that under the TTB basic winery permit, we may qualify for the small producers tax credit (SPTC), if we "removed" less than 100,000 gallons of wine. Under that condition, the excise tax rate would fall from $1.07 to $0.17 for wine with less than 14% alcohol.
The article seemed to raise a discrepancy when it came to the first bullet point, excise tax due dates, so I went right to the source: Summary of the PATH Act of 2015. In this summary, the part that pertains to wineries falls under Subtitle C – Additional Provisions, Section 332.
Section 332
Removal of bond requirements and extending filing periods for certain taxpayers with limited excise tax liability. The provision allows producers of alcohol that reasonably expect to be liable for not more than $50,000 per year in alcohol excise taxes to pay such taxes on a quarterly basis rather than twice per month (and those reasonably expecting to be liable for not more than $1,000 per year to pay such taxes annually, rather than on a quarterly basis). The provision also exempts such producers from bonding requirements with the IRS. The provision is effective 90 days after the date of enactment.

Aux in Bags

Last year, we were a little late in getting our netting so we put our 1200 or so clusters of grapes in wedding bags. Our lineman, who would help us with just about any task, drew the line at ironing the wedding bags. Winter, though, is a good time to iron wedding bags and it is now coming in handy in bagging our Auxerrois. We have about 300 clusters of Auxerrois scattered in 3 rows. Yesterday, when we went to check on the Auxerrois, the skin of the grapes had turned soft, indicating the beginning of veraison. I began bagging our Auxerrois.

Later, when we went home, we checked the Brix (the sugar content) of the sampling of Auxerrois grapes and found it to be between 8-9 degrees. At the end of two days, a little more than 400 Auxerrois clusters were bagged.

Juvenile Redtail Hawk

One of the things that we like about going to work in the vineyard is that we see some amazing sights, some of which I've captured under the tab Vineyard Sightings.
This year we've noticed an increase in the number of rabbits in our vineyard. Yes, they are cute little hippity-hoppity animals so we leave them alone, secretly hoping for some kind of raptor to take down some of them.
When my husband went to the land on Friday morning to meet Scott, I handed him the camera that I have custody of, to take some picture of the Netting Unroller Platform that ace welder, Scott was designing for us.
My husband went to our vineyard around 7:30 a.m. It was a good thing that he had our camera because he was able to take photos of a juvenile redtail hawk! My husband said that the hawk let him get pretty close so that he could get these photos:

He soon discovered the reason why the hawk let him get close. This next photo tells the rest of the story:

Netting Unroller Platform

With nearly 3500 grape clusters this year, last year's solution of bagging our grapes with wedding bags was not a solution we wanted to entertain. So as soon as we were confident that we could have a harvest that required netting, we ordered it from our provider.
We will be netting 10 rows of grape clusters this year, which brings up the question of how to unroll the netting which comes in rolls of 31-inches by 1650 feet! My husband thought that we could ask our welder to design something that would fit on the Landini's trailer hitch which would be attached to the three point hitch which we would attach to our hydraulics so that we could raise or lower the netting as needed.

When my husband talked with our ace welder, Scott, he said, "What about using your riding mower?" That sounded like a reasonable idea so on Wednesday, Scott came to retrieve our riding mower as well as a roll of netting so that he could design the unroller platform. Yesterday, Friday, Scott came back with our riding mower with the netting unroller platform that he designed for us. First of all, he did it so quickly! Thank you, Scott! This is what the netting unroller platform looks like:

We have 3 more rows of weeding to do before we can put up the netting. When we do, I'll report back on how the unroller performed.

2015 Trefethen Chardonnay

Lately, this Chardonnay from Trefethen has become one of my go to Chardonnays to drink. We had some friends over to have panko and diced olive crusted halibut on sliced lemons and had this 2015 Trefethen Chardonnay for the pairing. What I liked about this California Chardonnay was that it wasn't over the top oaky, in fact I didn't perceive the oak, only a nice melding of lemons which gave this wine an acid backbone as well as a subtle influence of mellowness coming from malolactic fermentation. We have found, by making a very small batch of Chardonnay last year that our Chardonnay can taste exceedingly acidic since we didn't allow our wine to undergo malolactic fermentation.
In going to the Trefethen Home Page, I learned how their Chardonnay is vinified. The Chardonnay underwent barrel fermentation, followed by 4% malolatic fermentation, and spent 9 months in new French oak. This Chardonnay has garnered 90+ points from the likes of Robert Parker, Wine Enthusiast, and Decanter, so I'm in good company.

Cluster Count - 2017

It is still a reasonable task for us to count the number of clusters of Chenin Blanc that we have currently hanging in the vineyard. This count allows us to plan for the type of fermentation vessel we need to consider and how we will end up crushing the harvest. In 2015, we recorded for our harvest that our 153 fruit bearing Chenin Blanc gave us 360 clusters of grapes. It was exciting for us, but very paltry. Nonetheless, it was a beginning.
Last year, we harvested 2.2 times as many clusters, with a total of approximately 800 clusters. I hadn't documented the rows and cluster information on my blog so I looked back at my little notebook to get the 2016 and 2017 count shown below.

The count of clusters along with an average weight of 4 ounces per cluster is what we are using to provide us with some approximation of the weight and resultant volume we will get for the Chenin Blanc. This year, we will have a fair amount of Auxerrois and Chardonnay, perhaps enough to make 5 gallons of juice. It is still far from veraison, so fingers crossed!

Vital Statistics for our Chenin Blanc

In 2015, I took the Vital Statistics of two of our clusters of Chenin Blanc from the first year that we had grapes. For us, this is a good reference because it tells us the dimensions as well as the Brix level of the grapes in September, so I frequently refer to it when harvest time nears.
One of the tasks in the vineyard is to count clusters so that we can get a good representation of what the harvest might be. This has a bearing on what my husband will order for tanks as well as how we might best juice and store the must during fermentation. Our friend, Mary did a count of the clusters before she and her husband Barry left for their overseas trip, along with our other friends who frequently give us help in the vineyard. (Sad)
In addition to cluster counting, another task we do at this time of the year is cluster cleaning using tweezers. I was doing that yesterday, when, perhaps, but don't tell my husband, I might have been a little overzealous and tore one of the wings at it's peduncle. What to do? I had to drop the bunch. But, I did bring it home to take the vital statistics for this bunch. In general, the Chenin Blanc clusters look much larger than they have looked in the past. We thought that the clusters might be around 4 ounces and that is what we were basing our calculations on. Here is what this cluster's vital statistics are:
Weight:

Dimensions:

The berries are very green and quite hard so it was a little difficult to juice it and take the Brix level, but when I did, it was about 4.5 degrees, so very, very far from veraison. This is a good thing since we still have to put up the netting.

2014 Vasse Felix Chardonnay

Our days are now focussed on canopy management and keeping our growing grapes in good shape. It's working in hot, humid, conditions aoccasionally bolstered by our friends' much appreciated help.
Last night, we had our friend over for squash blossoms that she provided that my husband fried with a light batter dusted with panko. To pair with the squash blossoms, we drank the wine that she brought home with her from a trip to Australia, a 2014 Vasse Felix Chardonnay from the Margaret River.
Chardonnay is a curious grape that responds to where it grows and how it is vinified. We are grappling with how to vinify our small amount of Chardonnay that we now have, so tasting various styles of Chardonnay is an educational process for us.
My husband and friend really liked the Chardonnay. I was initially put off by my over sensitivity to what I think is an aroma of hydrogen sulfide, in contrast my husband and friend smelled toasted oak. I swirled and the aroma that I initially apprehended blew off and I agreed, the Chardonnay was very well made. I tasted lemons with a touch of oak, not overwhelming but very well integrated. Good friends, great wine, and good food, it was a perfect ending to a sweaty day in the vineyard.